Do we want an Obama Doctrine?

Wishful thinkers who had expected President Barack Obama to lay out a new U.S. grand strategy for the Middle East — the so-called Obama Doctrine — during his much-anticipated address at the State Department on Thursday were bound to be disappointed.

That post-1945 American presidents were able to enunciate a series of U.S. “doctrines” to help mobilize support at home and abroad for American policy in the Middle East reflected a reality in which Washington — driven by pressures of the Cold War and the Arab-Israeli conflict — was advancing a set of core strategic goals that seemed to be aligned with U.S. interests and values.

The “good guys” deserving U.S. protection and support were the “moderate” Arab regimes that were supporting American (and Western) interests, providing access to the region’s oil resources, and seeking some form of coexistence with Israel. In that context, it is important to remember that until the administration of President George W. Bush started advancing its Freedom Agenda, no administration declared that spreading democracy was a core U.S. interest in the region.

The current political upheaval in the Middle East is just the latest and most dramatic in a series of changes that have been transforming the region since the end of the Cold War and that are making it more difficult for any U.S. president to articulate a set a principles that could guide policy in an area of the world that has been drawing in more U.S. military and economic resources.

Indeed, Obama’s speech only helped to demonstrate the failure on the part of the president and other officials and lawmakers to provide a clear rationale for U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Hence, Obama was trying to draw the outline of a revisionist narrative in which the goals of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia were aligned with U.S. interests and values — despite the fact that the demonstrators there ended up ousting from power staunch pro-American allies.

And while most Americans would probably applaud Obama’s call for protecting individual rights, freedom of religion, the emancipation of women, and the promotion of free markets in Egypt and other Arab countries, there are no indications that the majority of the people who are driving the change that supports these principles.

If anything, considering the findings of several opinion polls conducted in the Middle East, Arab governments who will be more responsive to their people’s aspirations are probably going to be less inclined to move in the direction set by Obama and to embrace policies that will be less favorable to the interests of the U.S. and Israel.

Reiterating — as Obama did in his speech — that the collapse of the authoritarian regimes in the region doesn’t have to lead to civil wars between religious, ethnic and groups sounds nice. But the experience of Iraq — not to mention Lebanon — suggests otherwise, especially as the struggle between Sunnis and Shiites seems to be spilling over into Bahrain and the rest of the Persian Gulf.

And while in Iraq U.S. policies are helping to put in place a Shiite-led government with ties to Iran, in Bahrain Washington is backing the Saudis in their effort to suppress a Shiite revolt backed by Iran.

In fact, the alliance between the U.S. and the Saudi Arabian theocracy — less democratic than Syria, more corrupt than Libya, the purveyor of radical Islamic values, where women and non-Muslims have no political and other rights — makes a mockery of much of what Obama was saying on Thursday.

Moreover, Obama’s address on Thursday also highlighted what could be construed as a paradox. The more American military and financial commitments in the Middle East keep rising the more the U.S. becomes marginalized in the process.

Indeed, contrary to the hopes articulated by some Arabs and Israelis, Obama’s speech did not amount to the kind of “game changer” that could bring back to life the dormant Palestinian-Israeli peace process. There is very little that the Obama administration could do to change the status-quo in Israel/Palestine. Why pretend otherwise?

Well, perhaps because Obama believes that he does not have any other choice but to continue muddling through in the Middle East from which the U.S. will not be able to extricate itself anytime soon. Hence, Obama’s disjointed response to the upheaval in the Arab World: Grudgingly supporting the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, unenthusiastically backing limited military action in Libya, projecting a nuanced attitude to the unrest in Bahrain, and confounding supporters and opponents in Washington and in the Middle East who tend to project into him the respective fantasies (peacemaker) or nightmares (anti-Israeli).

That may not a doctrine. But then that is not too bad if you consider that his predecessor in office had one. With the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat, W. saw the world through the prism of a Great Idea — the struggle between Good and Evil — and tried to impose it on a the complex reality of Iraq where the ethnic and religious identities took precedence over notions of democracy and liberalism.

Obama should be praised for recognizing that what is happening in the Middle East may follow neither the model of Iran in 1979 (radical Islam) nor the outline of Eastern Europe in 1989 (liberal democracy), but could instead generate a mishmash of changes that don’t fit into a linear and coherent pattern. But at some point, the costs of his ad-hocish and accommodating responses to the developments in the region could prove too high to sustain in the long run.

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5 Responses to Do we want an Obama Doctrine?

Obama’s speech immediately reminded me of the old James Bond “Spy Who Loved Me” song, “Nobody Does It Better” — in that nobody does disguised global Empire better than the US and its new “Open Globalization” pitch-man.

Yes, Obama is a wonderful spokesman (better than even Reagan or Friedman) in promoting the appearance of a promising “Globalization” and looking forward to democracy for all, while glossing over the fact that the forced march to globalization by force of arms is essentially just a cover for the reality of “global Empire”.

The PR skills of the US and Obama are the only combination that can promise the advertising illusion of such ‘hope for change’ under the implied mantel of “democracy” and free market economic “Globalization”, and yet deliver the reality of deceptive, disguised, dysfunctional, and unsustainable “Global Empire” — Nobody does it better.

The world, and particularly this “GAP” portion of the world, as defined in Thomas Barnett’s “The Pentagon’s New Map”, can not help but be beguiled by such a sales-pitch. Nor can any other individual or set of countries proffer such appealing rhetoric.

But the results of such a promising sounding plan, extended by the disguised hand of the global corporate/financial/militarist Empire which has already taken over our own former country (and many others) will not end well — as can be predicted with precision by looking no further than the looting of public countries that the privatized global Empire has so recently practiced on America and much of the fading western nation-state world of countries.

As Nobel economist George Akerlof more presciently diagnosed as far back as 2001, “This is not normal government economic policy, but a form of LOOTING”.

The global looting of public assets for private greed is the job of the global Empire, while the job of lying and luring the world into this trap is the job of Obama — and he has done a great job for his masters.

It seems to me that Mr. Hadar is forgetting, or ignoring, the difference between “doctrine” and “policy”.

“Doctrine” refers to a principle of action that applies categorically under a defined or understood set of circumstances. In the context of foreign policy, it usually applies under a very broad set of circumstances: If anyone does such-and-such, our country will do such-and-such, to help or hinder. Doctrine is always explicit, and normally a matter of public declaration. There is rarely any point in not being explicit, since doctrine applies to a wide range of potential actors, and, to be taken seriously, allows of few or no exceptions. In such cases there is normally no reason not to let the world know in advance where you stand. In fact, in foreign policy doctrine typically boils down to a preventive threat, which is not effective unless it is public. There is little point in defining foreign policy explicitly and in advance except on fundamental matters of grave security import (or, less likely to be meant sincerely but of little import if exceptions are made, humanitarian or ethical matters). Foreign policy “doctrine” thus tends to, among other things, explicitly define a potential casus belli.

“Policy”, however, is a response to a particular problem or challenge–of any nature whatever. The only requirements for good policy are that it be rational, well-informed, and consistently conducted toward a reasonable goal. This does not entail that all its effects will be uniform in terms of criteria unrelated to that goal, unless those criteria relate to matters (including ethical constraints) that are more important than the goal in question. Policy may be explicit, tacit, or secret, as required by circumstances. Foreign policy (like military policy and for the same reasons) is often, of necessity, tacit or secret. As Will Rogers said, “diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggie’ until you can find a rock”.

The Middle East is an unwalled loony bin, where the initiative, especially in the long run, is with people who are criminals at best, fools or fanatics at worst, in all cases violent, unscrupulous, and utterly without regard for truth or reason, who regard the United States either as an enemy or as a divinely ordained tool with no legitimate interests of its own. (That particular mythology compares the role of the U.S. to that of Cyrus of Persia. Look it up.) The mess is largely sui generis, with little connection to the generalities that govern foreign policy where more-or-less rational (not necessarily even ethical) parties are involved. And the situation in the Middle East is dangerous in the extreme, with nukes and world-wide culture wars in the offing, and our own borders (and institutions) wide open to those who would carry the war to us or who desperately need to carry us to the war.

What the United States needs for dealing with the Middle East is policy, not doctrine. For the first time, we may have one. Time may prove the preceding statement to be wishful thinking. But for the first time, at least, there are grounds for wishful thinking. Obama is an old-fashioned Chicago ward politician (manipulating the levers of 21st-century patronage in ways that his predecessors would have instantly understood). He may be hopelessly out of his depth on domestic issues, but foreign policy–and its impact on domestic elections–is another matter.

The wish for a rational Middle East policy, after all, did a great deal to get Obama elected. It may do so again next year. The economy will not outweigh the Middle East as an election issue, because the Middle East is itself a major drag on the economy–as well as a major handicap for the U.S. in all other foreign policy and security issues, most of which have obviously similar economic ramifications. If Obama pursues a rational Middle East policy, that alone would likely drive the national Republican party to hysterical suicide in 2012–with the electorate compensating at the state and local level by sending people to Congress who will counterbalance Obama’s disastrous domestic policies. Obama may or may not anticipate or care about that last bit, may or may not realize that the electoral scenario described above is the best he can hope for. It doesn’t really matter. It’s probably the best the country can hope for.

obama doesnt seem to grip the reality of the new middle east, his speech was like a rerun of a speech that could have been made in the coldwar period.
Intead of condemning his allies – israel, bahrain, yemen, saudiarabia, UAE etc..he did the usual aipac-backed anti-Iran speech to get more money from the zionist lobby. This speech was just watered down and a last attempt to establish their declining power in the mideast.

“making it more difficult for any U.S. president to articulate a set a principles that could guide policy in an area of the world that has been drawing in more U.S. military and economic resources.”

When we consider the scope of our problems, the range of options is simplified considerably. They can be expressed in five syllables: “non intervention”.

That is the only principle we’ll be able to afford for a long time. It is, however, a good principle, and one that will serve us well as we rebuild our economy and re-learn the lost habits of constitutional government.

Well, given that damn near every other “doctrine” we’ve supposedly followed in the past have been so full of swiss-cheese holes it was a coin-toss whether they meant anything…

So while I don’t know if you call it a “Doctrine” or not, but one thing I think Obama has done, even with his Cairo speech but now even moreso in the wake of all the populist stuff in the ME, is essentially announced that yes, seriously, the U.S. does have an interest in other ME states and that it goes beyond oil.

And this is seems to me is bad for Israel because to my way of thinking it’s clear that our support for same is contrary to those interests other than oil in those other states.

Maybe then what Obama’s done/is doing—albeit perhaps somewhat forced to by the bloody obvious—is making it okay in polite society to give more than just lip service to the idea that we at least have a *variety* of interests in ME that the U.S. has the right to be concerned about, and not *just* oil and Israel.

Would at least be a welcome change from the *denial* of same that’s we’ve lied to ourselves about before.